Hasmik’s phone rang.
She glanced at the screen and rolled her eyes playfully. “Lupercus,” she mouthed before answering. Her voice dropped into a hushed tone as she stepped away, motioning for me to stay where I was.
I nodded.
This is your chance.
I stared at the exit. The streets were crowded, pulsing with energy and color. People were everywhere. It would be impossible to track someone through that maze if they didn’t want to be found.
My heart pounded.
I hated myself for even thinking about it. For wanting to leave her. To betray their kindness.
But the ache inside me, the pressing need for vengeance, wouldn’t let go.
I moved.
Slowly at first, pretending to browse a rack near the door. Then I slipped through the crowd outside like mist. Hasmik was still on the phone, turned away.
I ran.
I moved like smoke. Weaving through clusters of shoppers, ducking into crowds. I looped around the block twice, letting bodies mask my scent. My memory flicked back to the turns we’d taken earlier in the Aston Martin, how Hasmik had narrated the path out of habit.
Right on Temple Avenue. Two blocks north, then a side road called Moon’s Hollow. Past the bakery with the strawberry bread.
Left at the bronze statue of the feathered chimera. I followed the map I’d stitched into my mind.
My lungs burned. But I didn’t stop, not until I turned a final corner and found myself on a quieter street tucked away from the noise and light.
There, in the shadow of a crumbling tower, I leaned against the wall, panting.
A weight crushed my chest. Guilt. But vengeance had waited long enough.
Sargis’ POV
I was halfway through sealing the third decree of the day, my fingers were smudged with wax, when my phone buzzed. The screen lit up and it was a call from Hasmik.
I smiled, the tension I didn’t realize I’d been holding easing slightly. It had been barely three hours since Narine left, but the quiet already felt like a stretch of eternity. I missed her. Missed the sound of her voice, and the curve of her frown.
I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hand the phone to her,” I ordered, already imagining her reluctant smile.
“I wish I could, Sargis.”
There was hesitation in her voice.
“Cut it out, Hasmik. Not in the mood.” I drawled, she was playing one of her usual dramatic games.
“I’m serious, Sargis. She whispered. “I can’t find her. I, I’ve looked everywhere, but it’s like she just vanished.”
The silence on my end was thunderous.
My body locked up so tight I thought I might shatter from the pressure alone.
“Hasmik…” I muttered slowly, “this isn’t funny.”
Her breath hitched. “You think I would joke about this? Do you hear me? She’s not here. She’s…. fuck…. I don’t even know when she slipped out. I only turned around for one minute. I should have.. I should’ve…”
I was already moving.
The chair screeched back, slamming into the wall as I shoved away from the desk. My heartbeat roared into my ears, and I couldn’t tell if the sound was inside me or shaking the very floor.
No. No. No.
This wasn’t happening.
“Where. Are. You?” I growled into the phone.
She rattled off an address, and I didn’t even wait for her to finish. I tossed the phone onto the nearest surface and tore through the hallway like a storm given flesh.
Elevator.
Garage.
Car.
My beast clawed beneath my skin, dangerously close to breaching. It felt her absence like a wound. I threw open the car door, slammed it shut, and floored the accelerator with a snarl that could’ve melted steel.
I cut through the city like a comet, lights blurred, and the buildings spun past in a fever dream. Horns blared loudly. And people scattered as I sped through, but none of it mattered.
Only she did.
Where the fuck could she have gone?
I gripped the wheel tighter, until the leather groaned beneath my hands.
When I skidded to a halt outside the boutique Hasmik had described, she was already pacing, phone in hand, panicked. The crowd around her stared as I got out.
Her eyes widened as I approached. “Sargis-“
“Start talking,” I snapped. “Now.”
Hasmik flinched, not out of fear, no. She was too trained for that. But the sheer volatility bleeding from my aura was enough to send lesser wolves crawling. I could feel my eyes burning black.
“She was fine,” Hasmik rushed, wringing her fingers. “We were laughing, shopping… She even let me buy her lingerie! She was shy, but she was there with me. She didn’t act off. I told her to wait inside the store while I took a call from Lupercus. I swear, Sargis, it wasn’t even five minutes, when I turned back, she was gone.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “And you didn’t track her?”
“I did!” she snapped. “But she masked her scent, well. Better than I expected. She mixed in with crowds, diluted her trail in the street vendors’ spice clouds like she planned it all along.”
“Which way?” I asked, already pulling off my jacket and handing it to her.
Hasmik pointed down a winding road. “Her scent was thickest toward the lower quarter right after the merchant district.”
A car pulled to a stop, and Lupercus stepped out, jogging towards us.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he explained.
“There’s no time to dilly-dally,” I ground out. “Let’s split up and fan out across the district. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”
I didn’t wait for their response. I took a deep breath to capture her scent. I caught it, barely, and followed it down the road Hasmik had pointed to.
I tore through the streets like a storm, tracing her scent with the sharp, honed instinct of a predator, but each trail ended coldly.
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